In Vaughn v. Solera Holdings, LLC, No. 3:23-CV-02612-N (N.D. Tex. Mar. 12, 2025), Texas District Judge David C. Godbey denied Plaintiff’s motion to compel production of Slack communications between employees regarding her factual allegations “[b]ecause the Slack documents are not in Defendants’ possession, custody, or control”.
Case Discussion and Judge’s Ruling
In this employment discrimination case where Plaintiff alleged sex and race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Judge Godbey ruled on several motion to compel responses from both Plaintiff and Defendants in this ruling.
In Interrogatory No. 14 and Request for Production Nos. 9 and 10, Plaintiff sought communications between employees regarding her factual allegations, specifically to compel Defendants to produce responsive documents from Slack and Chatter, employee-communication platforms.
In ruling on Slack communications, Judge Godbey stated: “Regarding the Slack communications, Defendants explained that they do not have possession, custody, or control of documents from Slack because Spireon’s Slack license never included message retrieval or exportation and Spireon did not otherwise store or archive Slack messages…Because the Slack documents are not in Defendants’ possession, custody, or control, the Court denies Vaughn’s motion to compel the Slack documents.”
As for Chatter communications, Judge Godbey stated: “Defendants argue that these communications are not relevant because sales employees, not IT employees, used Chatter, so Vaughn, her comparator, and her supervisors did not use the platform…However, Vaughn produced a declaration of a former Spireon sales employee, Chris Constancio, in which he stated that Jim Kronenberger — a Spireon sales executive — had discriminated against Vaughn, including by making bigoted, sexist, and homophobic comments about her…Accordingly, there could be statements made by Kronenberger on Chatter that are relevant to Vaughn’s claims. The Court thus grants her motion to compel production of documents from Chatter involving Kronenberger that are responsive to Request for Production Nos. 9 and 10 and to compel a supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 14.”
So, what do you think? Are you surprised that the Court found the Slack documents are not in Defendants’ possession, custody, or control? Should the plaintiff have provided an expert to challenge that statement? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Case opinion link courtesy of Minerva26, an Affinity partner of eDiscovery Today. Check out Kelly Twigger’s discussion of the case here!
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.